Envelliment i comunicació : interrelació entre els factors auditius, cognitius i emocionals

La pèrdua auditiva és una de les condicions de salut cròniques més comuns en els adults grans, amb importants implicacions per a la qualitat de vida de les persones que la pateixen. Interfereix en la comunicació i dificulta les relacions amb els altres, la qual cosa pot generar un cert desajustament social i emocional, afectant la seva qualitat de vida i la participació en activitats comunitàries. Tot i així, no sempre sol estar diagnosticada durant les primeres manifestacions i la seva rehabilitació sol encara considerar-se poc freqüent. En el present article, s’aporten evidències científiques sobre l’impacte negatiu de la presbiacúsia tant en l’esfera comunicativa com en l’àmbit cognitiu de les persones grans. Finalment, s’aborda la necessitat d’enfocar la seva rehabilitació des d’una perspectiva interdisciplinària, atorgant a l’acompanyament psicològic de la persona afectada i a la rehabilitació logopèdia tanta o més importància que l’ús d’unes pròtesis auditives perfectament adaptades a les necessitats del pacient

Llenguatge i envelliment: una visió des de la neuropsicologia

En el procés d’envelliment es produeixen canvis neuropsicològics, de manera que algunes funcions cognitives es deterioren progressivament al llarg de tota la vida adulta, unes altres es mantenen estables fins a edats avançades, mentre que d’altres poden, fins i tot, millorar. Està ben establert que l’envelliment afecta la memòria, atenció, funcions visoperceptives, velocitat de processament, funcions executives, com també algunes funcions lingüístiques. Aquests canvis en les funcions cognitives tenen el seu correlat en el deteriorament cerebral que es produeix en l’envelliment. Estudis recents amb tècniques de neuroimatge han mostrat que, mentre que els adults joves presenten un patró fortament lateralitzat en l’hemisferi esquerre en tasques de llenguatge i de memòria verbal, les persones grans tendeixen a mostrar patrons bilaterals. Pel que fa al processament del llenguatge, es postula la presència de pèrdua de recursos, alentiment en el processament de la informació, falta d’inhibició, dèficits en la transmissió, deteriorament de la memòria de treball o dèficits sensorials i perceptius. Algunes funcions lingüístiques s’afecten que d’altres, però hi ha evidència de la presència d’un deteriorament del llenguatge associat a l’edat, amb afectació del lèxic, sintaxi i organització discursiva. És fonamental tenir en compte aquests canvis, per tal d’afavorir un envelliment satisfactori i millorar la qualitat de vida, tant de la persona gran com dels seus familiars

Dynamic DNA-Methylation of Retrotransposons in Rue under Drought Stress

Ruta graveolens (rue) is plant native to the Mediterranean region and presents in traditional medicine of this region since ancient times. There is poor information about the genome of Ruta and repetitive sequences and active mobile genetic elements have not been identified yet. Since rue genome is still mostly unexplored, and proliferative capability and large size of transposons make them key contributors to genome size and evolution, we aimed to isolate and characterize transposon sequences with a view to better understanding rue genome. We have isolated novel types of Ty1-copia like LTR reverse transcriptase from Ruta graveolens, leading to investigation of the genomic organization and phylogenetic relationships. Since the activation of transposable elements in response to environmental changes represents a form of adaptive response to biotic stress, we investigated if drought stress could influence transposon methylation and if the extent of methylation has been related to expression level. The results can have implications for rue genome understanding and their potential impact on Ruta evolution

Brief announcement:Distributed SplayNets

SplayNets are reconfigurable networks which adjust to the communication pattern over time. We present DiSplayNets, a distributed (concurrent and decentralized) implementation of SplayNets

Barriers and Enablers to the Adoption of a Healthier Diet Using an App: Qualitative Interview Study With Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

BACKGROUND: Adopting a healthy diet is one of the cornerstones of type 2 diabetes (T2D) management. Apps are increasingly used in diabetes self-management, but most studies to date have focused on assessing their impact in terms of weight loss or glycemic control, with limited evidence on the behavioral factors that influence app use to change dietary habits. OBJECTIVE: The main objectives of this study were to assess the enablers and barriers to adopting a healthier diet using the Gro Health app in 2 patient groups with T2D (patients with recently diagnosed and long-standing T2D) and to identify behavior change techniques (BCTs) to enhance enablers and overcome barriers. METHODS: Two semistructured qualitative interview studies were conducted; the first study took place between June and July 2021, with a sample of 8 patients with recently diagnosed (18 mo) T2D. In both studies, topic guides were informed by the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation, and Behavior model and the Theoretical Domains Framework. Transcripts were analyzed using a combined deductive framework and inductive thematic analysis approach. The Behavior Change Wheel framework was applied to identify appropriate BCTs that could be used in future iterations of apps for patients with diabetes. Themes were compared between the patient groups. RESULTS: This study identified similarities and differences between patient groups in terms of enablers and barriers to adopting a healthier diet using the app. The main enablers for recently diagnosed patients included the acquired knowledge about T2D diets and skills to implement these, whereas the main barriers were the difficulty in deciding which app features to use and limited cooking skills. By contrast, for patients with long-standing T2D, the main enablers included knowledge validation provided by the app, along with app elements to help self-regulate food intake; the main barriers were the limited interest paid to the content provided or limited skills engaging with apps in general. Both groups reported more enablers than barriers to performing the target behavior when using the app. Consequently, BCTs were selected to address key barriers in both groups, such as simplifying the information hierarchy in the app interface, including tutorials demonstrating how to use the app features, and redesigning the landing page of the app to guide users toward these tutorials. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with recently diagnosed and long-standing T2D encountered similar enablers but slightly different barriers when using an app to adopting a healthier diet. Consequently, the development of app-based approaches to adopt a healthier diet should account for these similarities and differences within patient segments to reduce barriers to performing the target behavior

Solubility studies of trans-cinnamic acid in mixed solvents

Phenolic acids are a subclass of phenolic compounds with chemical and biological properties of interest in the pharmaceutical and food industries. The design of their extraction and separation processes includes the knowledge of their thermophysical properties as well as multicomponent solid-liquid equilibria data. For these compounds, even essential solubility data in pure organic solvents and water are scarce. Therefore, in this work, trans-cinnamic acid was chosen as a model compound for which only a few solubility data in pure water and alcohols can be found in the literature [1-3]. The solubility of trans-cinnamic acid in the mixed solvents water + ethanol, and water + methanol was measured, at 298.15 K, using the isothermal shake-flask method and quantitative analysis either by gravimetry or UV spectrophotometry. As can be seen in Fig. 1, the solubility of the acid can significantly increase with the addition of the alcohol, with a more pronounced effect induced by ethanol. In a complementary approach and aiming to search for other methods to increase the aqueous solubility of trans-cinnamic acid, the phase-solubility diagram was determined for systems containing α-cyclodextrin. References [1] J. Li, Z. Zeng, L. Sun, W. Xue, H. Wang, Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, 61 (2016) 1192−1198. [2] F. Mota, A. Queimada,, S. Pinho, E. Macedo, Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, 47 (2008) 5182-5189. [3] Solubilities of Organic Compounds in Organic Solvents, J. Bradley, C. Neylon, R. Guha, A. Williams, B. Hooker, A. Lang, B. Friesen, Open Notebook Science, 2009.This work was financially supported by: Project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006984 – Associated Laboratory LSRELCM funded by FEDER funds through COMPETE2020 - Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI) – and by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio